What a Record Hunting and Fishing Expansion Means for America’s Wildlife Refuges
· Time
The Department of the Interior implemented a massive expansion of fishing and hunting access in the United States, opening 1,488 opportunities across 32 states. With the rule in effect as of Monday, more than 92 million acres, or 95% of National Wildlife Refuge System land, are now available for the practices.
Expanded hunting and fishing are now allowed in areas where the practices were never before legal, including Rocky Flats National Wildlife Refuge in Colorado and Stewart Lake National Wildlife Refuge in North Dakota.
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The rule also permits hunting and fishing for additional species and expands some seasons at locations where those activities were already allowed.
“America’s hunters and anglers now have something significant to look forward to in the fall,” said Interior Secretary Doug Burgum in the press release announcing the rule Aug. 13. “We are also promoting good government by reducing the regulatory burden and working with states to facilitate these outdoor activities.”
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The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) oversees more than 570 national wildlife refuges that were “established to serve a statutory purpose that targets the conservation of native species dependent on its lands and water,” according to the agency’s website.
Christopher Williams, a professor of wildlife ecology at the University of Delaware, says the refuges were initially created to protect wildlife and then later helped to combat “extreme market hunting,” or unregulated hunting of animals. They became safe habitats and breeding sanctuaries for endangered species under the 1966 Endangered Species Preservation Act.
Now, hunting and other forms of recreation are permitted across a majority of those refuges when “compatible with each station’s purpose and mission under federal law,” per FWS.
The very definition of a refuge seems to have “slowly morphed into an entity that was meant to provide an opportunity for hunting access,” Williams says.
The new rule raises a question of compatibility: How can the refuges fulfill their conservation mandate amid the nation’s largest-ever expansion of hunting and fishing?
Does hunting undermine the purpose of a wildlife refuge?
The FWS said this week’s expansion is about “maximizing access where compatible with conservation goals.”
It also said that the new rule will help revitalize rural economies, as hunters and anglers contribute more than $144 billion annually to the U.S. economy.
“These activities support jobs, fund conservation efforts, and sustain outdoor traditions that connect communities to the land and to each other,” the August announcement read.
Sporting groups touted the “historic expansion” and its potential ability to help retain hunters and fishers at these refuges, which may rely on them for curbing overabundant and invasive species.
Williams says it makes sense that conservation groups support the expansion, since hunters and anglers play an “enormously important role in American wildlife conservation.”
“And with long-term concerns about declining hunting participation, providing meaningful access remains an important part of recruitment, retention, and reactivation efforts,” he says.
“BHA applauds all efforts to responsibly expand and improve public access for hunters and anglers and appreciates the Administration’s recognition of the important role sportsmen and women play in the conservation and stewardship of public lands and waters,” Backcountry Hunters & Anglers said in a statement when the expansion was proposed in May.
This was not the first time the Trump Administration proposed such an expansion. A version of the rule from 2020 opened some 859 opportunities across 2.3 million acres. The increase in scope from his first term is about 73%.
The new rule also makes more than 1,000 modifications to existing federal regulations that previously guided access to the refuges, including simplifications and deletions. The Trump Administration has said the sweeping revisions aim to make it easier to understand and enforce guidelines from state to state. But some conservationists have concerns about how the abrupt elimination of that many regulatory mandates, all at once, will affect the refuges.
Robert Fischman, professor of environmental law at Indiana University Maurer School of Law, says that such a dramatic overhaul is worth noting. “I mean, 1,000 rules sounds pretty important,” he tells TIME.
The new rule reverses restrictions on lead ammunition
One significant change that comes with the new rule is a reversal on lead ammunition and tackle.
Following a lawsuit in 2021, the government said it would phase out the potentially harmful materials and require hunters and anglers to switch to non-toxic alternatives.
The Center for Biological Diversity sued FWS after it proposed an expansion on hunting opportunities during Trump’s first term. The lawsuit argued that the expansion could jeopardize protected species, which are susceptible to ingesting the lead ammunition and tackle. It also claimed that there would be residual harm to the greater ecosystem, as lead ammunition and tackle can contaminate fields and waterways.
The lawsuit was settled under the Biden Administration in 2022, with FWS saying it would phase out the use of lead ammunition and tackle at several refuges across the country.
Aaron Bloom, a senior attorney with nonprofit Earthjustice's Biodiversity Defense Program, said the phase-out was supposed to go into effect across eight refuges in September 2026. But with the new rule, the phase-outs will no longer take effect.
In response to the reversal, Bloom says Earthjustice will be looking at litigation—as will other environmentalist groups.
These phase-outs would have “protected both wildlife and human health, hunters and their families, from the adverse impacts of lead poisoning,” Bloom tells TIME. “There's absolutely no reason we should be allowing them in our wildlife refuges.”
Recent staffing cuts raise concerns about oversight
FWS staffing decreased by approximately 18% between April 2024 and May 2025, according to agency records obtained by the Center for Biological Diversity. The decline can be attributed in part to the “workforce optimization initiative” implemented by the Department of Government Efficiency at the beginning of 2025.
Fischman and Williams both express concern about the staffing cuts and how they will impact oversight amid expanded hunting and fishing access.
“What I'm hearing from people who are on the ground is you have whole national wildlife refuges that no longer have any staff there full-time,” Fischman says. “You have a refuge manager running around from one refuge to another, riding circuit to try to keep things together.”
Fischman questions whether there are enough staff left to “really understand” and document the impacts of the new rule. He says that streamlining refuge-specific regulations makes enforcement easier and may partially compensate for staffing reductions; however, he is skeptical that states have enough staff to patrol the affected refuges and ensure that hunters and anglers are complying with the regulations that do still apply.
“It’s dependent on there being people there to maintain trails, to monitor impacts on species, to enforce the law,” he says. “It could be that the rulemaking seems pretty logical [to the Administration], but on the ground can't be practically implemented in a way that is consistent with public safety and compatible with both the system mission and the refuge purposes.”
According to Williams, it's all a balancing act. He points out the need to preserve conservation efforts while boosting the economies of rural communities and reversing a long-term decline in hunting participation in the U.S.
“On one hand, are you reaching a point where you might be doing some harm of not having adequate sanctuary for wildlife? Or maybe you are making a net improvement to increase retention and recruitment of hunters, which provides a financial benefit?” he wonders. “The answer is probably yes on both sides of the house.”